A Light Look at a Serious Business
Clinical research trials are serious business. Any time you are dealing with patients’ health, investigating new treatments, weighing the benefit/risk ratio of trial entry, and creating and collecting data that can change medicine you need to approach your day with concentration and gravity.
That said- there isn’t any reason why relationships can’t be built and a bit of fun had by all parties involved in research. With the holiday season behind us our staff had stopped thinking about pretty packages and turned our thoughts to patent visits and data and lab collection. However, one of our clinical trial participants had other things in mind. When asked to return an early morning stool sample collection she threw out the boring white bag supplied to her for sample return and instead decided to “dress up” her sample with a bit of mischievousness and cheer. Her stool sample nested inside red tissue paper in a vivid santa bag brought smiles to our faces. More importantly though, her small gesture served as a reminder of why we really do this.
Poo in a Pretty Package
Clinical research is about helping patients find relief. It’s about increasing quality of life. It’s about those six little words we long to here, “I’m feeling so much better now!” It’s about all of us working together to improve medicine. And… it’s about happiness disguised as lab samples in Santa bags.
